Harbinger (The Bleeding Worlds) (12 page)

She left him on the ground, pausing her attack.

Gwynn’s vision began to clear. The pain made everything brighter, blowing details out of focus. Gwynn could make out the woman, who knelt down near his head. Did he see pity in her eyes? Or was the pain playing with his head?

“In another life,” she said, “this would’ve been unnecessary. We shouldn’t be fighting; we should unite in guiding the world to a greater vision. Please understand, I bear you no ill, but I can’t let you stop this. In the end, you should hate Suture, sending children to do the work of adults. Maybe when you join with the Veil, you’ll understand. When that happens, I hope you’ll forgive me.”

She raised her hand and the fire widened and roared.

I’m going to die.
A laugh played in his mind
. It’s not as scary as I imagined it would be.

Before she delivered the killing blow, a large shape that Gwynn couldn’t focus on, slammed into her. The shape and woman sprawled out of Gwynn’s line of sight. He tried to move, to see, but even small movements sent explosions of pain raging through his body. When he caught sight of them again, he recognized the shape as Pridament. The two stood facing off against one another.

The woman lunged at Pridament, who turned her away with a stinging shot of his staff. It meant nothing to her. She pressed her attack, stepping toward the staff, just to feint one direction, stepping and twisting to the other. Pridament seemed in control, though Elaios’ blows were coming close to hitting his head. He swept at her feet with his staff and she catapulted backward, landing just outside his range. She charged forward, connecting a blow to Pridament’s shoulder. He spun and struck her in the back as her momentum carried her forward. The woman hit the ground but rolled to her feet unfazed.

Gwynn waited for the woman’s next onslaught. Instead, she straightened and brushed the dust from herself. Pridament didn’t release his defensive stance. Pridament’s chest heaved with each breath, but his staff remained steady.

“Pridament.” The woman said. “It’s been too long since we danced with each other.”

“Not long enough, Elaios.”

“So,” an audible sneer in her voice, “you’ve thrown your lot in with Suture?”

“You should know better.”

She gestured toward Gwynn. “The boy?”

“Just that, a boy who tore the Veil and is trying to understand what’s happening to him. You remember how that felt Elaios? To tear through the Veil for the first time—the pain, the energies you couldn’t control? He’s here because when it happened to him, he didn’t close off the Veil. He’s been attached to it since.”

“How long?”

Pridament hesitated. Gwynn couldn’t see the man’s eyes.

“Almost two weeks.”

The woman, Elaios, looked at Gwynn with dismay. “Impossible. He’s still intact”

“Even after what you’ve done to him.”

“Then he’s…”

“Yes. A Script.”

Elaios shook her head. “You know I can’t let him go. If Suture finds him, they’ll use him to stop us. That can’t happen.”

“What you’re doing is wrong Elaios. Have you lost your vision? Can’t you see the calamity that is coming?”

Gwynn couldn’t follow their conversation anymore. An elephant’s worth of weight sat on his chest, collapsing ribs into lungs. Any moment, the fighting would begin again. How long until Pridament lost, or the woman got close enough to Gwynn to finish him off?

“I think, once upon a time, they were lovers.” A soft, high–pitched female said.

Gwynn rolled over to try to see the source. The crushing in his chest increased. He gasped for air.

A face came into view over top of him. Her pale porcelain skin contrasted with midnight black hair and clothes. Her green eyes shone like flawless gems held up to the sun.

“Do you remember me Gwynn?”

He remembered her—the girl from Mr. Baker’s classroom. Now, something else played at the fringes of his mind. Through the delirium of dying, or maybe being free of the distraction of his classmates, he truly
saw
her. Falling into her eyes, a memory lurched into place, a name filed away and forgotten.

“Adra…stia?”

She caressed his cheek with a cool hand. “Sweet boy, you do remember.”

Gwynn wanted to protest. It couldn’t be Adrastia. She had been an imaginary friend, a secret confidant.

“Let me help, Gwynn. Let me take the pain away. Just take my hand and I promise everything will be better.”

Gwynn hesitated. If she was Adrastia, something in his universe had changed. Like all childhood imaginings, he’d left her behind.

“Just take my hand.”

Gwynn just wanted to close his eyes and forget life and its cruel jokes. Every time things settled, every time happiness seemed possible, life found a way to fall apart. He wanted things to be better. He wanted the pain to go away. He reached toward Adastria’s outstretched hand.

A sound came to Gwynn. It sounded distant—echoing like it had raced to him through a long tunnel. Maybe a voice? He didn’t care anymore. He’d lost Sophia, his mom and dad were gone, and it seemed to follow that he should go too. Maybe Jaimie could find the life raising him had denied her. Maybe he should let go.

“Take my hand Gwynn.” Adrastia urged again. “Before you give up, before you slip into nothingness, take my hand. The pain will go away. It’s time you take your rightful place in the story of your life.”

Gwynn took hold.

The world exploded into a million shards of glass.

Everything fell away into darkness.

As a single drop of water, Gwynn hurtled toward a vast ocean. He struck it and his consciousness rippled to the furthest reaches.

He was nothing, yet he was everything.

The ripples rushed back toward him; an overwhelming wave of power. He drowned in darkness. He sputtered and choked. Something tugged at him from below the surface. The tendrils of the ages curled around him. A thing that defied names, definitions and time itself.

Falling, falling. Becoming the shadow.

§

Pridament choked on
the pounding of his heart. He gripped his staff harder, trying to keep it steady and from slipping through his sweat slicked fingers. The cold air blowing through the remains of the roof bit at his face, even as his body pulsed with heat.

Four feet behind him, Gwynn made the sounds of a mortally wounded man on the battlefield.

“Step aside Pridament.” Elaios commanded. “The boy is dying, and you can’t stop it. At least let me make it mercifully swift for him.”

“You forgot what mercy was when you threw your lot in with the Fallen, Elaios.”

From behind, Gwynn said something. The word made Pridament’s blood chill. Despite the threat from Elaios, he broke his eyes from her and chanced a glance over his shoulder at Gwynn.

Then he started shouting.

“No, Gwynn. No, don’t.”

The boy started convulsing. He’d waited too long.

“Gwynn…” Elaios said from behind him. “My God, Pridament. You kept going. Even after I told you not to, you still went ahead. Do you understand what you’ve done?”

“What I had to.”

The floor creaked under the shifting of her weight. Pridament closed his eyes, drew a slow breath, waited a fraction of a second more, and then spun, throwing his weight behind the arc of his staff. The resistance as it struck Elaios’ midsection gave him great satisfaction.

Pridament opened his eyes to see Elaios crumpled on the ground. She drew herself up to a crouch, holding her side.

“You’re a fool. Don’t you remember what I told you?”

“You said if I kept searching, it would be your undoing.”

She laughed—a sick, humorless rattle. “Men. Your memories are so selective.”

Gwynn began to scream.

“Do the right thing.” Elaios said. “Kill him while you still have the chance.”

She began to fold space. Pridament moved toward her. If he didn’t grab hold of her, keep hold of her, he would have no way of knowing where she’d gone. His fingers wrapped themselves in the cloth of her cloak.

“You’ll have to choose.” She screeched. “What’s more important to you? Me or the boy?”

Behind him, Gwynn’s situation was dire. The transformation had begun. His fingers slipped away from Elaios’ cloak, the world snapping back into place as she fled.

Gwynn’s eyes were bloodshot. His bones creaked and cracked as his hands elongated into claws. Black splotches mottled his skin, spreading and expanding like a virus. He sat bolt upward and fell to his hands and knees. His right arm tore at the air in front of him. A slight loosening of Pridament’s abdominal muscles gave him a familiar signal; Gwynn had just sealed the tear in the Veil.

“Thanks Gwynn,” Pridament whispered, “but this is going to hurt.”

Pridament waited. Gwynn rose up on his knees, revealing Pridament’s target. Pridament jammed his staff into Gwynn’s midsection. Maybe, just maybe, he would interrupt the flow of the energy coursing through Gwynn’s body. Or he would finish the job Elaios had started.

Gwynn howled and fell backward. He thrashed for the longest five minutes Pridament had ever experienced and then fell silent. Pridament willed himself to breathe. The black splotches on Gwynn’s skin began to recede. The boy’s bones slid back into their original shape.

When Gwynn’s outward appearance had returned to normal, Pridament risked a basic assessment of the boy’s condition. He moved his hands along Gwynn’s extremities and risked putting some pressure against the boy’s chest. Everything appeared to be in place and whole. Gwynn’s breathing became steady and free of any crackles. The bruising and lacerations on his flesh had vanished. All evidence of Elaios’ beating had disappeared.

“Adrastia” Gwynn said in the hoarse, hushed voice of the dreamer.

“No Gwynn. Don’t go with her. Come back. Let go of her hand.” Pridament caressed Gwynn’s face. He placed his hand on the boy’s chest, willing Gwynn back to the waking world. He felt something beneath Gwynn’s shirt. Pridament reached down and pulled the chain around the boy’s neck. Attached to it was a Saint Christopher medallion.

“I hope he does a better job of watching over you, kid.” Pridament said.

Gwynn began to stir. Pridament tucked the medallion back inside Gwynn’s shirt.

Gwynn groaned. “Am I dead?”

“Not yet kid. How do you feel?”

Gwynn drew open his eyelids and took a cautious look around his surroundings. “Not as bad as I should. Where’d the psycho bitch go?”

“Would you believe me if I said you scared her off?”

Gwynn’s eyes said
Bullshit
. “Am I that scary when I’m unconscious?”

“No. Can you get up?”

Gwynn inched his way to a sitting position.

“Hurt?”

“No.” Gwynn seemed perplexed. “A little stiff though.”

“What about your headache, or that throbbing in your arm?”

Gwynn blinked. “Gone. Wait, no, still a little, but nothing like it was. What did you do?”

“Nothing. You closed your tear in the Veil. What about the sky? How does it look to you?”

Gwynn turned to the torn out side of the roof. “Overcast.”

Pridament gave the boy a once over. “Are you sure? Overcast?”

Gwynn shrugged. “Yeah. Why?”

“Because it’s been sunny for the past couple of days. Quite unusual for November.”

“That’s not what I see.”

“I know.” Pridament’s expression darkened. “I thought it was your connection with the Veil playing with your senses.”

Gwynn got to his feet and walked over to the hole in the roof, his gaze moving up to the sky.

“My God.”

“What do you see?” Pridament asked. His stomach twisted.

“It… it looks like a whirlpool in the sky.” He turned back to Pridament, his eyes panicked. “What is it?”

Pridament sighed, a weight heaving itself on his shoulders. How many worlds? How many would be enough?

“I’ve heard of it before.” He shook his head. “A madman once described it to me. He said, “‘The Veil will open its maw and devour the world.’”

The
key slid in the door, sounding hollow and alone. Fuyuko opened the front door of the small bungalow she had called home for the past three weeks. The silence blanketed her. She had a cot in one of the back bedrooms as her sole furnishing.

Fuyuko dropped her backpack on the counter and opened the fridge. Another night of noodles. She gave a weary sigh and tried to convince herself this served some purpose. Hadn’t she contacted Justinian for that reason? Because she
couldn’t
find that purpose. She pounded her fist on the counter. The feel of the impact reverberated up her arm into her shoulder. The sensation gave her comfort. Something solid that pushed back. Her world. No matter what ideas or philosophies Suture taught,
this
world, the one that she could touch, was all she knew or cared for. The last time she had dared mention this, Caelum suggested she felt that way due to being a Fragment. He made the gentle suggestion that maybe if she were a Script she would understand. She rewarded him with a case of frostbite.

Caelum remained at Suture. She couldn’t recall a mission they had worked apart. She couldn’t recall a time when
any
of them had worked alone. Yet here she was. Strong Fuyuko. Dependable Fuyuko. Lonely, confused and frustrated Fuyuko.

She pulled the cell phone from her pocket. It seemed so heavy and cold sitting in her hand. Just like the house she lived in, there was nothing outstanding or interesting about it. No company logos, nothing fancy, just pure function.

She flipped it open. If she pressed and held the five key, she would reach Suture. She had done that last night—the first time she had used the phone in her three weeks. She let out a long breath. The silence suffocated her. She needed to call someone.

Jason. What she would give to speak to him. She sighed. Even if you could reach individual members of Suture, she didn’t know how. She ran through the names of her friends. All of them probably in the barracks or out on some mission. One option remained. Her last option.

“Hello?”

Fuyuko winced at the sound of the voice. She had to steady herself before responding. “Hi dad.”